The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition | Page 5

words
dictated to aged disciples on lonely islands. There would arise special
castes of men and women, learned in these sacred matters; and these
priestly castes would naturally emphasize the importance of their
calling, would hold themselves aloof from the common herd, endowed
with special powers and entitled to special privileges. They would
interpret the oracles in ways favorable to themselves and their order;
they would proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god,
walking with him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and
angels, acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing
punishments and in receiving gifts. They would become makers of laws
and moral codes. They would wear special costumes to distinguish
them, they would go through elaborate ceremonies to impress their
followers, employing all sensuous effects, architecture and sculpture

and painting, music and poetry and dancing, candles and incense and
bells and gongs
And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There
let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below, In service
high and anthem clear, As may with sweetness through mine ear
Dissolve me into ecstacies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
So builds itself up, in a thousand complex and complicated forms, the
Priestly Lie. There are a score of great religions in the world, each with
scores or hundreds of sects, each with its priestly orders, its
complicated creed and ritual, its heavens and hells. Each has its
thousands or millions or hundreds of millions of "true believers"; each
damns all the others, with more or less heartiness--and each is a mighty
fortress of Graft.
There will be few readers of this book who have not been brought up
under the spell of some one of these systems of Supernaturalism; who
have not been taught to speak with respect of some particular priestly
order, to thrill with awe at some particular sacred rite, to seek respite
from earthly woes in some particular ceremonial spell. These things are
woven into our very fibre in childhood; they are sanctified by
memories of joys and griefs, they are confused with spiritual struggles,
they become part of all that is most vital in our lives. The reader who
wishes to emancipate himself from their thrall will do well to begin
with a study of the beliefs and practices of other sects than his own--a
field where he is free to observe and examine without fear of sacrilege.
Let him look into Madame Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine", or her "Isis
Unveiled"--encyclopedias of the fantastic inventions which terror and
longing have wrung out of the tortured soul of man. Here are mysteries
and solemnities, charms and spells, illuminations and transmigrations,
angels and demons, guides, controls and masters--all of which it is
permissible to refuse to support with gifts. Let the reader then go to
James Freeman Clarke's "Ten Great Religions", and realize how many
billions of humans have lived and died in the solemn certainty that their
welfare on earth and in heaven depended upon their accepting certain
ideas and practicing certain rites, all mutually exclusive and

incompatible, each damning the others and the followers of the others.
So gradually the realization will come to him that the test of a doctrine
about life and its welfare must be something else than the fact that one
was born to it.
#The Great Fear#
It was not the fault of primitive man that he was ignorant, nor that his
ignorance made him a prey to dread. The traces of his mental suffering
will inspire in us only pity and sympathy; for Nature is a grim
school-mistress, and not all her lessons have yet been learned. We have
a right to scorn and anger only when we see this dread being diverted
from its true function, a stimulus to a search for knowledge, and made
into a means of clamping down ignorance upon the mind of the race.
That this has been the deliberate policy of institutionalized Religion no
candid student can deny.
The first thing brought forth by the study of any religion, ancient or
modern, is that it is based upon Fear, born of it, fed by it--and that it
cultivates the source from which its nourishment is derived. "The fear
of divine anger", says Prof. Jastrow, "runs as an undercurrent through
the entire religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria." In the words of
Tabi-utul-Enlil, King of ancient Nippur:
Who is there that can grasp the will of the gods in heaven? The plan of
a god is full of mystery--who can understand it? He who is still alive at
evening is dead the next morning. In an instant he is cast into grief, in a
moment he is crushed.
And that cry might be duplicated from almost any page of the Hebrew
scriptures: the only difference